


dictionary of oliver

by shadeandadidas



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Words, a little bit of everything in between, dictionary type thng, probably lots of academics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-02-09 04:32:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12880239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadeandadidas/pseuds/shadeandadidas
Summary: Drabble-esque one-shots in which words are defined, delineated, and put into motion with our favorite would-be/better-eventually-be couple.Most recent:It starts, as most things with the Perlmans do in the recent years, with a letter.





	1. Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose this is my first foray into CMBYN! I don't know how you can't love this movie and think about it for days afterwards... so here I am. I actually have another story in the works, but for now, we'll go with this one! Some of these come from my Tumblr, and some will be brand new :D

“Oliver!” The delight is clear in Prof’s voice, high sounding and robust, “How are you?”

Oliver leans against the kitchen wall, catching the briefest glance of a bird passing by through the window. It was a beautiful day; sunny, warm, and without the humidity that had been at times unbearable in the Italian summer. But still, Oliver longs to be back there. He longs for the sweat and burning in his cheeks- the feel of crystal clear river water ( _runoff from the mountains_ , a voice whispers in his ear).

He longs for the summer.

Oliver smiles, “I’m great. Busy with revisions. It’s never ending, Pro.”

Professor Perlman makes a dismissive sound, “ _Sam_ , Oliver. I’m not your Professor anymore.”

The smile falls off his face and Oliver leans back until his head thuds lightly against the wall. “That’s right.”

“Do you want me to get Elio for you?”

_Yes. More than anything, yes. Bring him here and force him to talk to me. The silence is the worst part. The not-knowing what’s happening in his life. It’s killing me, Pro. It’s-_

“Nah,” Oliver says with a light laugh, “He’s uh- I don’t think he wants to right now.”

There’s silence on the other line. Oliver counts his breaths,  _one, two, three_  and then Sam’s voice is back. Quieter. “Elio feels a lot. More than most. It’s one of the greatest things about him.”

“I know.” Silence again; long white noise that spans continents and oceans and almost a year now. The Professor doesn’t make to fill in the quiet this time, so it’s up to Oliver. “How is he?”

“How are  _you_?”

Oliver hesitates, “I miss… Italy. Things were easier there. Before there, too.”

“The word nostalgia,” Professor says, adopting a light voice, “It’s Greek of course- comes from the idea of ‘pain from an old wound’. That’s the difference between memory and nostalgia. It has to hurt a little bit.”

“I think we both know it’s not nostalgia I’m feeling.”

“No… no, I don’t imagine it is.” 

Oliver rubbed his eyes, suddenly tired. “Well, I have to go. I just wanted to say hi. And to... make sure everyone was alright.”

“He is.” A breath drawn and then, “Or he will be. But will you Oliver?”

The window is open now and though it’s absolutely impossible, because Boston weather is not ideal for the tree, Oliver smells peaches. His stomach longs and longs and _longs._

“I have to go. Talk soon, Pro.”


	2. Crave

"Did you know,” Oliver begins in a whisper, clearly attempting not to disturb the beautiful lucidity of the nighttime hour. Elio can hear the cicadas outside chirping, whirring away, playing their chorus which had been completely lost to him in the hours he and Oliver had spent in the throes of passion. But he could hear them now; now, as their passion had faded for the time being, content instead to lounge in each other’s arms, counting freckles, whispering nonsense.

Elio waits for him to continue, but Oliver doesn’t, staring lost into space like he’s prone to do when he has deep thoughts on his mind.

_To live inside your mind_ , he thinks.

Elio turns over to face him, accidentally dislodging the fingers that had been tracing a careful path up and down his bare shoulder, “Did I know what?”

“Hmm?” Oliver hums, eyes leaving their dark place and returning to meet Elio’s. He smiles and shakes his head lightly, “Did you know that the word  _crave_  has it’s origins in Germanic roots? But then the Old English language adopted it and turned it to  _crafian_ , which means to demand or assume as a right. And then it was given relation to the Swedish “ _krava_ ” which is the same and the Danish “ _kraeve_ ” and on and on…”

Elio blinks languidly, tilting a bit until Oliver brings his opposite hand up to trace the space Elio’s lashes meet his cheek. Elio tilts again and bites at the finger, “Why are you telling me this?”

Oliver flicks him on the nose and kisses it when Elio makes a face, “Why, indeed.”

Elio grins and rolls overtop Oliver, balancing what little weight he has on his forearms. “Do you _crave_ me, Oliver? Do you _demand_ me and think you have a claim to me?”

Oliver spots the challenge, relaxing in Elio’s hold until Elio least expects it, and then flips them shamelessly, “I crave you,  _Oliver_.”

Elio goes boneless, “I crave you,  _Elio_.”


	3. Content

_ I love this, Oliver _ . Elio had said once, face upturned toward the sun, basking in it’s warmth; in his carefree youth. The very picture of a  _ Golden Boy _ , Elio always had been. A prodigy in looks, in smarts, in heart and feeling.

Whether pale and hiding in his father’s studies, delving into book and after book or artwork after artwork; whether laying outside in the grass, just as he had been that day, pale skin tanning ever so slightly as each minute passed, he was a golden and unflinching brightness.

_ He _ was the sun and the one he basks in so easily is pale in comparison.

Oliver let a small smile curve at his lips, peering one open and watching Elio hum and nod along to whatever classical composition he was transcribing in that beautiful head of his. Oliver was tempted to ask; to sit up from his space, sprawled out on the grass in his faux nap-addled state, but the magic of the moment would be lost.

He needn’t worry though because at that moment, Elio looked away from his notebook and down to Oliver’s place amongst the grass. He raised a dark brow over the rim of his sunglasses, “What are you all smiley about.”

“The word is  _ content _ , Elio,” Oliver hummed, stretching long limbs that went far past the edge of his towel. “ _ Content _ : origin Latin. From contentus meaning-”

“Satisfied,” Elio finished, sliding his glasses into unruly curls. “What’s got you so satisfied?”

Oliver gestured lazily to the space surrounding him. The bright green Italian flora and fauna, the sounds of cicadas in the tree. He crosses his arms behind his neck and laid his head down into the curves. “Life, Elio. Right at this very moment, life is good.”

" _Life is good_." Elio mocked, getting up from his bench and wandering over to sit cross-legged at Oliver's hips.

Oliver brought careful fingers to trace at the smattering of freckles dotting Elio's side. "Do you disagree?"

A tilt of the head, a purse of the lips, a furrowing of the brow; Elio's face was far more rich in expression and nuance than that of the most talented actor. Still he shrugged his feigned indifference, "I guess it's alright."

" _I guess it's alright_ ," Now Oliver was the one who mocks and Elio rolled his eyes and swatted at the hard lines of Oliver's stomach. "It won't be like this for much longer."

Elio was quick to cut in, "I don't want to think about that."

He agreed easily enough, "Okay."

"I," Elio hummed, darwing out the word, "Want to talk about something much different."

"I'm all ears." Elio's hand began to trace downwards, circling the ridges of Oliver's abs and then lower, to his bellybutton, and lower still. He plays with the strings of his bathingsuit and traces lower. Oliver hissed out a laugh, grabbing at Elio's wrist. "So that's what you want to talk about."

Elio grinned cheerfully, "Maybe _talk_ was a bit of a misnomer." 


	4. Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio,
> 
> I can never seem imagine you in gray weather. It’s like my memories of you exist only in the sunshine; in tank tops and swim trunks and those dark glasses you always favored. The mind is a funny thing, I guess.

Elio,

New York is cold as it always is. It’s been gray for the last week and a half. It’s odd because even when it’s gray here, I’ll look out of the window and see bright flashes of sunlight, feel the heat of the Italian summer on my back, and then just barely catch the slightest smell of apricot juice. Then I will blink and it’s cold and gray and wet again. I hope it’s not that way back in Italy. I don’t think it is though.

I can never seem imagine you in gray weather. It’s like my memories of you exist only in the sunshine; in tank tops and swim trunks and those dark glasses you always favored. The mind is a funny thing, I guess.

My teaching assistant said something interesting to me today. Maybe the first thing he’s said noteworthy all year. He said time is like a circle. Circle, of course, comes from the Greek’s  _ kirkos _ meaning a “hoop” or “circuit”. Closed off, you’d think.

But he said that everything on a circle is interchangeable. Happening all at once, all the time. Can you imagine? Right now I’m grading essays on Plato, but according to his theory I’m also laying on the edge of your pool, feeling the gentle breeze off of the water and looking out the corner of my eyes, watching you compose.

All at once. Isn’t it interesting?

I hope you’re well. I always do.

Oliver


	5. Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Oliver dreams of Italy, he dreams of sunshine.

When Oliver dreams of Italy, he dreams of sunshine. 

He dreams of light rays filtering in between leaves, warming his face in speckled spots as he lays in the Perlman’s backyard. He dreams of the way the breeze used to ruffle his hair, black sunglasses tipped precariously on his head, the sweet smell of peaches and cherries and apricots in the air. 

He dreams of Bach; of careful notes filtering through his every pore, overtaking the constant hum of fresh water falling into the stone pool like a waterfall into a placid lake. Sometimes he recognizes the song, sometimes he doesn’t, but it never matters. Sometimes he gets up and follows the music, bare feet sliding in between blades of ultra green grass, good-naturedly swatting flies from his face. In his peripherals, sometimes he sees Anchise coming up the driveway with a fish in hand, or Mafalda in the process of offering Oliver apricot juice.

He always ends up in the Perlman’s drawing room. Standing there, in the entryway, mesmerized by the boy behind the piano.

Elio never turns towards him, but Oliver focuses on the bare skin of his back. It’s smooth and unmarred; a blank canvas that for a summer, Oliver had the privilege of being able to suck white-hot purple marks into.

(Sometimes the dream is so vivid that Oliver swears he feels the warm texture on his fingertips, sometimes he swears he can feel every knob of spine, every ridge of rib, every raised imperfection long after waking up.)

Elio’s shoulder rise and fall with every note and though Oliver can’t read his expression, he knows it by heart. Intense, focused, lost in the music the way Oliver loses himself in philosophy; in the words of Hericlitus.

He yearns to get closer, to sit on the bench next to Elio. To nudge him, to tease, to  _ touch _ .

He never does though. Oliver doesn’t know why, but maybe even his dream self knows that this Elio is an illusion. A manifestation of Oliver’s deepest, truest desires. A ghost of the past.

_Dream_ , he thinks in sleep and in wakefulness, originally “ _drēag”._ _Old English:_ _Spectre, apparition_.

Then the alternate:  _ Dream. _ “ _ bedrog.” Dutch: deception, deceit. _

“Elio,” he dreams himself whispering. “Elio, Elio, Elio.”

The piano stops, Elio tilts his head in thought, He twitches like he’s about to turn around--

Oliver wakes up.


	6. Proud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It starts, as most things with the Perlmans do in the recent years, with a letter.

It starts, as most things with the Perlmans do in the recent years, with a letter. There is always a brief hesitation before Oliver opens it; a quick pit falling in his stomach. Does he dare open the letter? Does he immerse himself once again in the summer that he left long ago but has never quite left  _ him _ ? Does he open himself up to the pain, the hurt, the  _ regret _ ? Because try as he might, and as much as he allows himself to admit to himself in the light of the day, there is regret. 

(There is also the briefest moment in which Oliver hopes beyond hopes that the letter is from Elio, though he never has gotten one from him before.)

Oliver taps the unopened letter against the dry seam of his lips thoughtfully. It’s silly, but even after the days or weeks in the Italian postal system and then American one, Oliver swears he can smell the faintest traces of apricot. 

He tears open the letter and leans back in his kitchen table chair.

_ Dear Oliver, _ it reads in the professor’s unmistakable scratch writing. Oliver feels a flicker of disappointment and then a bloom of warmth for the father he wishes could have been his.

The professor greets him in his exuberant way and then asks about his health, that of his wife’s, his job. He details what life is like in Milan nearly three years after Oliver has last seen any member of the family. He updates Oliver on the state of his newest book and gives his thoughts on Oliver’s finally published manuscript. 

Most of the letter is that; making Oliver feel as though he is still important, still apart of the Perlman family, even as he never truly was. 

At the end of the letter, the professor signs his name and just below it: 

_ Proud _ _ : from the Latin “prodesse”, meaning of value to one. And then the French, “prud”, meaning valiant.  _

And below that,  _ I’ve attached a newspaper clipping. Be proud. He certainly is of you, even if the goose won’t admit it. As am I. _

Oliver slides a worn newspaper clip from it’s paperclip prison and sets aside the letter. His eyes take in the headline and-

And. Oliver has to smile. He has to chuckle because if he didn’t he might weep. 

 

**Italian Piano Prodigy Stuns Carnegie Hall**

**Author's Note:**

> I really appreciate any comments and kudos-- and hey, if you don't want to talk about the story, talk to me about CMBYN! Was it not amazing?!?!
> 
> Also, come hang out with me on Tumblr: shadeandadidas


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